As fate, or the 2024 and 2025 NFL roller coasters, would have it, McCarthy's first road NFL start occurred at Soldier Field, a short distance from his home town of La Grange Park, Illinois.
Now his second will be about an hour from his alma mater, Michigan, which he led to a CFP National Championship.
Vikings Head Coach Kevin O'Connell said he and McCarthy recently went back and watched Minnesota's Week 1 win at Chicago and Week 2 home loss against Atlanta, "just looking at some of the principles of how he how he played."
"We generated 170 yards in the final 17 minutes of the \[Bears\] game, and he had a ton to do with that just by simply being efficient with his feet and being accurate … reading progressions and putting the ball in play and throwing completions, and then we were able to run the ball as well," O'Connell explained. "And it kind of married all together."
"The biggest thing I took away was just how, we keep saying 'When we do the simple things, right, what does the outcome look like?' So really just focusing on my processes, going through the reads, making sure I'm taking the right footwork and staying kind of calm- minded and \[having\] a duck mentality in terms of just how I go about each play in each situation," said McCarthy, with the last part being a reference to not letting one bad play affect the next play.
"It really just came down to the simple things, and making sure we master that," McCarthy said.